The International Conference on Systems, Communications and Coding (SCC) is a bi-annual event which covers a broad range of topics in various fields of wireless and wired communication. The conference is organized by the Information Technology Society (ITG) of the Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE) in technical co-sponsorship of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

This year, the 11^th SCC conference was held from February 6^th to February 9^th , 2017, in Hamburg, Germany. For the second time in a row, it was hosted by Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and organized by the Institute of Communications, led by Prof. Gerhard Bauch, the general conference chair. More than 130 scientists from 15 different countries had gathered, with participants coming from academia as well as from industry. The mix of participants reflected the aim of the conference, namely to bridge the gap between the different communities in the areas of communications.

The program of SCC comprised 38 oral presentations, among them 16 invited talks and two tutorials by renowned experts. In addition, intensive discussions were fostered by offering five poster sessions. The broad scope of the conference was characterized by topics such as modulation and channel coding, network coding, cooperative communications and computing, massive MIMO, 5G and beyond, industry 4.0, internet of things, video compression, secure communications, compressed sensing, localization, and fiber-optical communications. As a new component of the conference, an interactive industry panel was held with four representatives from companies who discussed the past, present and future of cellular systems. The audience was included in the debate, giving their opinions on systems of 5G and beyond by voting via smartphone.

This scientific program was complemented by a visit to the Emigration Museum BallinStadt Hamburg, located in the Veddel quarter of the city. The former barracks for emigrants, erected from 1901 onwards, have been converted into a museum, which opened in 2007. The respective exhibition gave an extensive overview of the worldwide history of migration, with a focus on the 19^th and 20^th century. The tour was concluded by a short talk given by a museum’s guide. The remainder of the evening was devoted to the social aspect of the excursion: The participants enjoyed a candlelight banquet in one of the historic emigration buildings, where, among others, typical Hamburg dishes were offered in the form of a buffet.

Detailed information about SCC 2017 is also available on www.scc2017.net. The next SCC will take place in Rostock in 2019.

Prof. Joachim Hagenauer, Technische Universität München, during his invited talk on Shannon’s 100th birthday

Prof. Amin Shokrollahi, EPFL Lausanne, gives an invited talk on chordal codes

Social event at the Emigration Museum, BallinStadt

Interactive session during panel discussion at SCC

Author:
PD Dr.-Ing. Rainer Grünheid
Lecturer and Senior Engineer
Institute of Communications
Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH)